The Lightning Thief, MY Version
by WaytoManyImagination
Summary: This is my first fanfic, so please don't be rude. I'm a big fan of Percy Jackson and the Olympian and Super Mario, but IT'S NOT what you think, and to find out, you have to read. WARNING: You may not like it, and maybe take it offensive, so, don't like, don't read, okay? Thank you. R&R and anonymous and guest reviews accepted
1. I Accidentally Vaporize My Magical Teach

**Hey guys, this is my first fanfic! So, since I'm a big fan of Super Mario Bros., and Percy Jackson & the Olympians, I decided to make my first fanfic of BOTH of them, but it's not 'Mario meets Percy', it's totally different. Don't like, don't read.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Super Mario Bros, they belong to Rick Riordan and Nintendo.**

Darwin Wilbur & the Starlians **(A/N: Told ya!)**

THE HAMMER THIEF

CHAPTER ONE, I Accidentally Vaporize my Magical Teacher

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this just because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, its only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Darwin Wilbur. **(A/N: Review if you liked the name!)**

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Am I a trouble kid?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at Ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know-it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Ollston **(A/N: :) hehehe)** our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.

Mr. Ollston was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee, but for some reason, I didn't know if it was me, but I found his skin kind of yellow, and his nose a little pointy. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like ay my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.

This trip, I was determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Lindsey Barker, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Toby in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

Toby was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Anyway, Lindsay Barker was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly green hair (which for some reason, sometimes I found his head WAY to big sometimes, not sure why), and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.

Toby tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Lindsay's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Toby pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Lindsay Barker right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Ollston led the museum tour.

He rode up front of his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was king of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other chaperone, Mrs. Kayla, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Kayla was this little math teacher from Georgia with round-like glasses, who always wore a purple leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Kayla loved Lindsay Barker and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Toby I didn't think Mrs. Kayla was human. He looked at me, real serious and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Ollston kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Lindsay Barker snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I meant to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Ollston stopped his story.

"Mr. Wilbur," he said, "did you have a comment?"

My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir"

Mr. Ollston pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Mockrow eating his kids, right?" **(A/N: Yes, you read correctly, it says Mockrow.) **

"Yes," Mr. Ollston said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because…"

"Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Mockrow was the king god, and-"

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Nightrian," **(A/N: I decided to change the name like that.) **I corrected myself. "And… He didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Mockrow ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Mario, **(A/N: bet you didn't see that one coming, he he he.)**and gave Mockrow a rock to eat instead. And later, when Mario grew up, he tricked his dad, Mockrow, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Nightrians," I continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Lindsey Barker mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Mockrow ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Wilbur," Mr. Ollston said, "to paraphrase Miss Barker's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Toby muttered.

"Shut up," Lindsey hissed her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Lindsey got packed, too. Mr. Ollston was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Ollston looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Wilbur. Mario did indeed feed Mockrow a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely indigested in the Nightrian's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Bowserus** (A/N: I don't think there wasn't any other place to put him.)** the darkest part of the Soul Zone **(A/N: I had to change it, otherwise it would be so confusing to some people.) **On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Kayla, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Toby and I were about to follow when Mr. Ollston said, "Mr. Wilbur."

I knew that was coming.

I told Toby to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Ollston. "Sir?"

Mr. Ollston had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Ollston told me.

"About the Nightrians?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Darwin Wilbur."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Ollston expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Ollston took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been since Christmas. We'd had massive storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Lindsay Barker was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Kayla wasn't seeing a thing.

Toby and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away of the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Toby asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Ollston. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."

Toby didn't say anything for a while. Then, just when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watch the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.

Mr. Ollston parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Lindsay Barker appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Toby's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went black. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Lindsay was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Darwin pushed me!"

Mrs. Kayla materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"

"-the water-"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Kayla was sure poor little Lindsay was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Kayla turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"

"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Kayla said.

"Wait!" Toby yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Kayla scared Toby to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Thornerdoon," she said.

"But-"

"You-will-stay-here."

Toby looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Kayla barked at me. "Now."

Lindsay Barker smirked.

I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Kayla, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.

How'd she get there so fast?

I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at a blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

I went after Mrs. Kayla.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Toby. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Ollston, like he wanted Mr. Ollston to notice what was going on, but Mr. Ollston was absorbed in his novel.

I looked back up. Mrs. Ollston had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Lindsay at the gift shop.

But apparently that wasn't the plan.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up with her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Kayla stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Kayla. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.

She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.

I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Darwin Wilbur," Mrs. Kayla said. "It was only a matter of time before we find you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I didn't know what she was talking about.

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't…"

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. She stretched her arms and legs, suddenly appearing a purple gown and a purple pointed hat, then her skin turning yellow, with a pointy nose growing. Her wooden shoes suddenly transformed in unison into a broom, which she grabbed with one hand, while the other was now holding a metal pole with a round-like red diamond at the top and rising a few feet in the air.**(If you've played the Super Mario games, I expect you to know who she is.) **She wasn't human. She was a shriveled witch hag and a mouth with white teeth, and she was about to blast me to pieces.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Ollston, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Darwin!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.

Mrs. Kayla lunged at me.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt a blast of energy slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr. Ollston's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.

Mrs. Kayla spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!

Mrs. Kayla was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air,**(A/N: I decided to let the monster die normally like in the actual book.)**as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

I was alone.

There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.

Mr. Ollston wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had I imagined the whole thing?

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Toby was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Lindsay Barker was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Sandra whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Sandra. I asked Lindsay what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

I asked Toby where Mrs. Kayla was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.

"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Ollston sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Wilbur."

I handed Mr. Ollston his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Kayla?"

He stared at me blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Kayla. The pre-algebra teacher."

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Darwin, there is no Mrs. Kayla on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Kayla at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling alright?"

**Well, that was nice, for the first chapter! If you liked it, review! so if you want me to continue on this story, he he, and I hope you liked the title book, to give you a clue! ;)**


	2. Seven People Knit the Socks of Death

**Hey guys, here's chapter two, sorry it took a little while due to some changes, he he he.**

**But right now I need some ideas, and some names to these characters:**

**Annabeth**

**Thalia (Especially her)**

**Clarrise**

**Luke**

**And mario characters as the minor gods since I already have the Olympians-I mean-Starlians.**

**For example:**

**Rosalina as Hecate, okay? thanks!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Super Mario, they belong to Rick Riordan and Nintendo**

CHAPTER TWO, Seven People Knit the Socks of Death **(A/N:You'see =) )**

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Sandra-a perky blond woman whom I've never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Kayla reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was a psycho.

It got so I almost believe them-Mrs. Kayla had never existed.

Almost.

But Toby couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Kayla to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew she was lying.

Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Kayla with a deadly wand and dark magiced broom would wake me up in cold in cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Lindsay Barker and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Heving, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.

The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet… There were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Toby, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.

I'd miss Latin class too-Mr. Ollston's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Ollston had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Kolorado and Kansas, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. **(A/N: Does dyslexic people see it like that, answer in the reviews!)**

I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.

I remembered Mr. Ollston's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Darwin Wilbur.

I tool a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Ollston, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Ollston's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps away from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Ollston asked a question. A voice that was definitely Toby's said "… Worried about Darwin, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"… Alone this summer," Toby was saying, "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Ollston said. "We need the boy to mature more."

"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"

"Will have to be solved without him, Toby. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"Sir, he saw her…"

"His imagination," Mr. Ollston insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."

"Sir, I… I can't fail in my duties again." Toby's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Toby," Mr. Ollston said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Darwin alive until next fall-"

The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Ollston went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Ollston's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and slippled inside.

A few seconds later I heard slow footsteps, I think, but they sounded a bit different, the a sound of something soft moving rapidly right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Ollston spoke, "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Toby said. "But I could have sworn…"

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Ollston told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Ollston's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.

Toby was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just… Tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Toby and Mr. Ollston were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Ollston called me inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Darwin," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's… It's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the tests could hear. Lindsay Barker smirked at me and made sarcastic kissing motions with her lips. **(A/N: If there is anyone who acts like that to other students, or worse let me say that what you're doing is wrong! And you'll end one way or another, sooner or later, paying the consequences! You've been warned...)**

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean…" Mr. Ollston wheeled hid chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Ollston said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say… You're not normal, Darwin. That's nothing to be-"

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

"Darwin-"

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies. **(A/N: If the gods read that. hehehe)**

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversations as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Toby, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, do there we were, together again, heading into the city.

During the whole bus ride, Toby kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Toby nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Ollston the night before the exam.

Toby's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh… Not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. "Look, Darwin… I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about witch math teachers…"

"Toby-"

"And I was telling Mr. Ollston that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Kayla, and…"

"Toby, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Toby Thornerdoon

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um… Summer address."

My heart sank. Toby had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly, "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

He nodded. "Or… Or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out harsher than I meant to.

Toby blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Darwin, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."

I stared at him.

All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Toby," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Toby and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just seven people sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, three of them knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. A lady on the right, who looked like thirty or forty, knitted one of them. Strangely, she appeared to have yellow skin and dark hair, a pink bun and a pink strap-on dress, but, she seemed to fade, and pop right there again. But every time she seemed to fade, right in the middle of her chest was a yellow star with eyes, and the same pink ribbon.

A middle-aged man on the left knitted the other. He had purple skin, dark-brown pointy hair, round-like glasses, two-way pointy-like mustache, over-grown eyebrows, a black leather jacket, underneath, a white long-sleeved button shirt with a black tie, and black pants. He seemed to be fading and being there again, and when he seemed to fade, in the middle of his chest stood a purple star with the same glasses, same eyebrows and mustache.

An old man in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. He had yellow skin, gray hair, thinning eyebrows, and a large beard. He had a wooden staff on his side, a gray sweatshirt and black pants. Which I saw that he also faded and appeared a yellow star with the same eyes, same large beard, and same eyebrows in the middle of his chest, then appeared again.

The other four were just behind them.

One of them was a young man who looked to be in his early twenties. He looked to have light blue skin and dark blue had a marine uniform, with a muscular body and he was lifting up and down a bag full of sand. He appeared to be fading like the others and then appearing a light blue star with the same marine hat and eyes.

Next to him, was a young woman who, like the marine guy, appeared to be in her early twenties. She had lipstick on and eyeliner, pink skin, dark-pink hair that reached her waist, a red knee-length dress, and red shoes. She had a yellow ribbon across her neck that slid through her arms. I saw her fade a second, seeing a light-pink star with the same eyes, ribbon, and same make-up.

To her side, was a young man who appeared to have just gotten out of high school dance. He had an elegant suit with a pink bun tied around his neck. He had dark combed hair, yellow skin (which I still found that strange) and a book in his hands. He faded, and in his chest was a star with the same eyes, book and pink bun in the star's chest, and then he appeared again.

Next to him, was a young man who looked like an early father. He had light green skin, brown hair, a thin brown mustache, and his eyes half-closed as if he were half asleep, or bored. He strangely had pajama pants, and shirt. He half faded, and I saw in the middle of his chest, a light green star with the same moustache, same eyes, same eyebrows, and then he appeared again.

**(A/N: Review if you know who all of them are, hehe)**

The weirdest thing was, all of them seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked at Toby to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Toby?" I said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"

"Not funny, Darwin. Not funny at all."

The old man in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Toby catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degress in there."

"Come on!" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the freaky people were still watching me. The old man cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. His two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Toby didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Toby?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Darwin, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean those people? What is it about them, man? They're not like… Mrs. Kayla, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand people were something much, much worse than Mrs. Kayla. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The old man took out his scissors, and he cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with hid fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw him snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it I knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Toby mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Toby," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.

No answer.

"Toby-that snipping of the yarn. Does this mean somebody is going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

**So, yeah, the end of the chapter, I'll hurry up on chapter 3, okay? Good.**

**Review if you liked it! If you've played the mario games, i expect you to know who those stars are, as the same as 'Mrs. Kayla' hehe**

**PS. I need a name for Percy-I mean-Darwin's mom, oh, and his ugly stepfather. Ethan, Out!**


	3. Toby Unexpectedly Grows His Head

**Howdy ho guys! here's Chapter three, I hope you like it! It took me quite a time, but it sure is worth it! hehe.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Super Mario**

CHAPTER THREE, Toby Unexpectedly Grows His Head **(A/N: I hope the title gives you a clue!)**

Confession time: I ditched Toby as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know. It was rude. But Toby was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering, "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"

Whenever he got upset, Toby's hiccups acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got of the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

A word about my mother, before you meet her.

Her name is Chelsea Wilbur **(A/N: Get it! Chel-sea! hehe)**and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working enough to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.

I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.

See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.

Lost at sea, my mom told. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on my own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.

Finally, she married Charlie Trevor **(A/N: For the record I hust want to say that I didn't chose the name Charlie because Darwin's mom's was Chelsea! Okay?)** who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed hid true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick-named him Smelly Charlie. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.

Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Charlie treated her, the way he and I got along… Well, when I came home is a good example.

I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Charlie was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?"

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it. No welcome back. Good to see you. How was your life been the last six months?

Charlie had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.

He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret". Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow.

Charlie could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Roy?"

Roy, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Charlie," he said. "The kid just got here."

"Am I right?" Charlie repeated.

Roy scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

"Fine," I said. I dug out a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."

"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Charlie's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.

I dropped the suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.

Charlie's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Kayla, or the sound of that old fruit man's shears snipping the yarn.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Toby's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone-something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. **(A/N: I need help! I seriously need to know what monsters of the mario universe I can put! I'm running out of ideas!)**

Then I heard my mom's voice. "Darwin?"

She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Charlie.

"Oh, Darwin." She hugged me tight. "I still can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"

Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.

We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about me getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing alright?

I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

From the other room, Charlie yelled, "Hey, Chelsea-how about some bean dip, huh?"

I gritted my teeth.

My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not some jerk like Charlie.

For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Toby and Mr. Ollston. Even Lindsay Barker didn't seem so bad.

Until that trip to the museum…

"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom."

I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Kayla and the seven odd people with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid. She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

"Three nights-same cabin."

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Charlie said there wasn't enough money.

Charlie appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Chelsea? Didn't you hear me?"

I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Charlie for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Charlie. "We were just talking about the trip."

Charlie's eyes got small. "The trip? You were serious about that?"

"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added. "Charlie won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Charlie softened a bit. "So this money for your trip… It comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey" my mother said.

"And you won't take anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Charlie scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip… And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.

Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back at it right now."

Charlie's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided.

He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Darwin," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about… Whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Toby during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.

But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Charlie his seven-layer dip.

An hour later we were ready to leave.

Charlie took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Charlie. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.

Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Charlie reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Toby make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, all the fingers over my heart, star-shape, then a shoving movement toward Charlie. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long to find out.

I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken from into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was to cold to swim in. I loved the place.

We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.

As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.

I guess I should explain the blue food.

See, Charlie had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Wilbur, rather than calling herself Mrs. Trevor-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Charlie. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in a plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Darwin," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his dark brown hair, you know, and his green eyes."

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Darwin. He would be so proud."

I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean… When he left?"

She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Darwin. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But… He knew me as a baby."

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."

I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember… Something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I had always assumed that he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me…

I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Charlie.

"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.

"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy, "I think… I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Darwin, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."

Her words reminded me of what Mr. Ollston had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy.

"Because I'm not normal," I said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Darwin. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.

During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man had black skin, red eyes, with sparks flying around him.

Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.

I knew I should tell my mom about odd people at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Kayla at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one option, Darwin-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just… I just can't stand to do it."

"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born-talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?

"I'm sorry, Darwin," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good."

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp…"

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a green horse and a red eagle **(A/N: To give you an idea of those two gods are ;) )** were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.

With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant sound, like a dozen chainsaws were being roared to life, and made my hair stand on end.

Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.

My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.

Toby stood framed in the doorway a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't… He wasn't exactly Toby.

"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"

My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Toby, but of why he'd come.

"Darwin," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"

I was frozen, looking at Toby. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Mari kai alloi theoi!" **(A/N: Get it, Mari?) **he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"

I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Toby had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Toby didn't have shoes on-and where his head should be… Where his head should be…

My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Darwin. Tell me now!"

I stammered something about the freaky people at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Kayla, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.

She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Toby ran for the Camaro. He was trotting, alright, he was trotting his brown feet. Even his nails were brown, and apart from that, I suddenly realized when I thought that he sometimes looked taller made sence to me. I understood now when he would run so fast it looked like his head was shaking fiercely.

Because where his head should be, there was no head. There, above his curly green hair, was a gigantic white red polka-dotted mushroom head.

**Woo!, that was a really long chapter. By the time I finish the book my fingers will be bleeding now!**

**I'll hurry up on Chapter Four I swear! But seriously, I need to come up with monsters on where to put them! Answer in the Reviews!**


	4. My Mother Teaches Me Spin-Blade Fighting

**Hey guys here's chapter 4, I hope you like it! It really took me a long time to what monster to put in the Minotaur's place.**

**Well, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Super Mario **

CHAPTER FOUR, My Mother Teaches Me Spin-Blade Fighting

We tore through the night along dark country roads. Winds slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.

Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Toby sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of weird hat. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the woods, like of odd rain. The smell of a weird fungus.

All I could think to say, was, "So, you and my mom… Know each other?"

Toby's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."

"Watching me?"

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."

"Urn… What are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

"It doesn't matter? From the head up, my best friend is a plant-"

Toby let out a sharp, throaty cough.

I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed he was sick. Now I realized it was more of a natural thing, since I could have sworn I saw him cough sugar. **(A/N: Since he's kind of a nature ecosystem and plants make their own food as sugar I decided to write that.) **

"Mushroom!" he cried.

"What?"

"I'm a mushroom from the head up."

"You just said it didn't matter."

He coughed. "There are Livomms who would poison you for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Livomms. You mean like… Mr. Ollston's myths?"

"Where those odd people at the fruit stand a myth, Darwin? Was Mrs. Kayla a myth?"

"So you admit there was a Mrs. Kayla!"

"Of course."

"Then why-"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Toby said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?"

The weird chainsaw noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Darwin," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after me?"

"Oh, nobody much," Toby said, obviously still miffed about the plant comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Toby!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Wilbur. Could you drive faster, please?"

I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.

My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want me to go."

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some weird people cut yarn."

"Those weren't people," Toby said. "Those were the Star Spirits. **(A/N: Review if you liked where I put them! =) )** Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to… When someone's about to die."

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me."

"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."

"Boys!" my mom said.

She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.

Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Kayla and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and deathly rays. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.

Then I thought about Mr. Ollston… And the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Toby about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.

I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.

I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."

"Darwin!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay…"

I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Toby!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook hip, thinking, No! Even if you are a weird fungus up to the head, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!

Then he groaned, "Food?" and I knew there was hope.

"Darwin," my mother said, "we have to…" Her voice faltered.

I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge mechanical thing. It seemed that it had the shape of a spin-blade. It seemed to be a red light coming from the top of it. His lighting eyes made it look like he was a robot.

I swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Darwin," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."

My mother threw herself against the driver's side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Darwin-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?"

Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too."

Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Toby."

"Food!" Toby moaned, a little louder.

The thing with the red flashlight on its head kept coming toward us, making its dozen chainsaw noises. As he got closer, I realized it couldn't be holding a flashlight under its head, because his hands-that looked suspiciously like claws-were swinging at his sides. There was no flashlight. Meaning that the red light was coming from _inside_ of him… Confirming that he _is _a robot…

"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But…"

"We don't have time, Darwin. Go. Please."

I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Toby the fungi, at the robot thing that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a spin.

I climbed across Toby and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."

"I told you-"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Toby."

I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Toby from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.

Together, we draped Toby's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.

Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his mechanical arms with metal claws that worked with electrons and neutrons and a bunch of other 'rons, and, in fact, it was a spin. Spikes ran along his circular body, which would easily cut me. He moved circularly because, being a spin, he had to keep balance with that pointy thing down him. In about the middle of his body were a lot of random lights and up were his cruel yellow eyes. **(A/N: Review if you know who it is?)**

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been one of the first monsters Mr. Ollston told us. But he couldn't be real.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-"

"Pasiphae's creation," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Top-"

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least.

I glanced behind me again.

The spin-robot hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. A strange light from the middle of him was moving-no-_analyzing _from some sort of radar. **(A/N: I decided to put him some extra things in him.)**I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet way.

"Food?" Toby moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"

"Due to the rain right now his sight and sonar are terrible," she said. "He goes by checking his radar right now. But he'll figure where we are soon enough."

As if on cue, the spin-robot bellowed his blades in rage. He picked up Charlie's Camaro by the torn roof with his metal claws, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

Not a scratch, I remembered Charlie saying.

Oops.

"Darwin," my mom said, "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way-directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"How do you know all this?"

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."

"Keeping me near you? But-"

Another analyzing light and another bellow with his blades, and the spin-robot started wheeling uphill.

He'd analyzed us.

The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Toby wasn't getting any lighter.

The spin-robot closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.

My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Toby. "Go, Darwin! Separate! Remember what I said."

I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature-or whatever they're called-bearing down at me. His yellow eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten oil.

He lowered his front and charged, those razor-sharp blades aimed straight at my chest.

The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.

The spin-robot stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Toby down in the grass.

We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.

The spin-robot blowed steam out of, I think, was its engine. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Toby.

"Run, Darwin!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"

But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His mechanical hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.

"Mom!"

She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"

Then, with an angry blade roar, the monster closed his claw around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply… Gone.

"No!"

Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Kayla's shoes had grown into a broom.

The spin-robot bore down on Toby, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, analyzing my best friend, as if he were about to lift Toby up and make him dissolve too.

I couldn't allow that.

I stripped off my rain jacket.

"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"

"Rrrrrrrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his metal claws.

I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the spin-robot, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.

But it didn't happen like that.

The spin-robot charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.

Time slowed down.

My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off the machine's face, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his head.

How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's face slammed into the tree and the impact almost knocked my teeth out.

The spin-robot spun around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his left claw that had tried to grab me to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten oil burned my nostrils.

The monster jumped up and down, left to right. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.

Meanwhile, Toby started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.

"Food!" Toby moaned.

The spin-robot wheeled toward him, blew steam again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around the claw I was holding myself and I pulled backwards with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap!

The spin-robot fumed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a metal claw in my hands, a ragged robot bone weapon the size of a knife.

The monster charged.

Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken claw straight to into his side, right up under his razor-sharp blades.

The spin-robot roared in agony. He flailed, his tip stopped spinning, with his other claw he clawed at his chest, and then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Kayla had burst apart.

The monster was gone.

The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Toby, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Toby-I wasn't going to let him go.

The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."

"Silence, Nikki," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside." **(A/N: I hope you like her name! =) )**

**Well, that's the end of the chapter! Hope you liked it! I'll hurry up on Chapter Five! See you later!**


	5. I Play Pinochle With a Turtle

**Hey! guys, here's chapter 5! I am really sorry it had to take so long, I went on a weekend with my uncles! Watched the movie Man of Steel! It was awesome, well anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter! Another reason I took so long was because some changes! He he he!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own anything (I'm getting tired of saying the names! Don't judge me...)**

CHAPTER FIVE, I Play Pinochle With a Turtle

I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.

I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips of my chin with the spoon.

When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

I managed to croak, "What?"

She looked around, as if afraid someone would over-hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't…"

Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.

The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.

A really mysterious dude, who was wearing a white mask with a mouth in the form of an "O", where his blue eyes could be seen, and, stood in the corner of the bedroom watching over me. He had red hooded over-tight sweater, and his mask was strapped to the hood as well so I barely was able to watch a few strands of his blond hair that escaped the hoodie. He had blue jeans and brown shoes. **(A/N: I hope you know who he is!)**

When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.

On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.

My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.

"Careful." A familiar voice said.

Toby was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Toby, Not the fungi boy.

So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And…

"You saved my life," Toby said. "I… Well, the least I could do… I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."

Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.

Inside was a metal claw with a small portion of the arm, the claws' tips splattered with motor oil. It hadn't been a nightmare.

"The Topmaniac," I said.

"Urn, Darwin, it isn't a good idea-"

"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Topmaniac. Half spin, half robot." **(A/N: Answer in the reviews from what game it is!)**

Toby shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"

"My mom. Is she really…"

He looked down.

I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.

My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.

"I'm sorry," Toby sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm-I'm the worst livomm in the world."

He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with chunks of dirt.

"Oh, Stirr!" he mumbled. **(A/N:Had to change it! And make it sound almost the same! I spent half an hour coming up with it!)**

Thunder rolled across the clear sky.

As he struggled to get his dusty feet back to his shoe, I thought, Well, that settles it.

Toby was a livomm. I was ready to bet that if I touched the air above his curly green hair, I'd find his mushroom head that had been camouflaged. But I was too miserable to care that livomms existed, or even topmaniacs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.

I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with… Smelly Charlie? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.

Toby was still sniffling. The poor kid-poor mushroom, livomm, whatever-looked as if he expected to be hit.

I said, "It wasn't your fault."

"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."

"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"

"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least… I was."

"But why…" I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.

"Don't strain yourself," Toby said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.

I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies-my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay. **(A/N: I had to resist the urge to plead my mom to buy me some ·drool·)**

Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Toby asked.

I nodded.

"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.

"Sorry," I said. "I should have let you taste."

His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just… Wondered."

"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Home-made."

He sighed. "And how do you feel?"

"Like I could throw Lindsay Barker a hundred yards."

"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."

"What do you mean?"

He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Kolorado and Mr. S are waiting."

The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.

My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Toby offered to carry the Topmaniac claw, but I held on to it. I'd paid that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.

As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I couldn't really process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture-an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and livomms played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Toby's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode _dinosaurs _down a wooden trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their dinosaurs had wings. **(A/N: If you've played the Mario games, and don't know what they are, than you need to go to the hospital to check your brain.)**

Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.

The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly ginger-hair so red it might have been blood. He looked like those paintings of baby angels-what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in one of Charlie's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.

"That's Mr. S," Toby murmured to me. "He'd the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Nikki Jaywer. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Kolorado…"

He pointed to the guy whose back was to me.

First, I realized he was sitting in a wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.

"Mr. Ollston!" I cried.

The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the choice answers B.

"Ah, good, Darwin," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."

He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. S, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."

"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Charlie, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. S was a stranger to alcohol, I was a livomm.

"Nikki?" Mr. Ollston called to the blond girl.

She came forward and Mr. Ollston introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Darwin. Nikki, my dear, why don't you go check Darwin's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."

Nikki said, "Sure, Kolorado."

She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.

She glanced at the topmaniac claw in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed the Topmaniac! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that. Instead, she said, "You drool when you sleep."

Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.

"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Ollston?"

"Not Mr. Ollston," the ex-Mr. Ollston said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Kolorado."

"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. S… Does that stand for something?"

Mr. S stopped shuffling his cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are a powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Darwin," Kolorado-Ollston broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?"

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. Whe have livomms at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Toby alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to… Ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Ollston had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.

Kolorado nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Toby," Mr. S said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Toby trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. S eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.

"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."

"I'm sure the boy can learn," Kolorado said.

"Please," I said, "What is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Olls-Kolorado-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. S snorted. "I asked the same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Toby flinched every time one landed in his pile.

Kolorado smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to know the right answer.

"Darwin," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?"

"She said…" I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

"Typical," Mr. S said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Kolorado said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

"Orientation film?" I asked.

"No," Kolorado decided. "Well, Darwin. You know your friend Toby is a livomm. You know"-he pointed to the claw in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Topmaniac. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."

I stared at the others around the table.

I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. S yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. S," Toby asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Toby bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"Wait," I told Kolorado. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Kolorado said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Starlus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Mario," I said. "Peach. Matthew. You mean them." **(A/N: Told you there would be some changes!)**

And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young man," said Mr. S, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."

"But they're stories," I said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. S scoffed. "And tell me, Darwinx Wilbur"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody-"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. S continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Kolorado? Look at this boy and tell me."

I wasn't liking Mr. S much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if… He wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Toby was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, keeping his mouth shut.

"Darwin," Kolorado said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Kolorado's voice made me hesitate.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Kolorado agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Darwinx Wilbur, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I still don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. S murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Toby said, "P-Please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. S grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe."

He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Kolorado hardly looked up.

"Mr. S," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. S looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr. S waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed to a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Kolorado winked at me. "Mr. S offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nearth who had been declared off limits."

"A wood nearth," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"Yes," Mr. S confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she was really pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha. Absolutely unfair."

Mr. S sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"And…" I stammered, "your father is…"

"Di immortals, Kolorado," Mr. S said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Mario, of course." **(A/N: Of course I would put him as King of the Gods, where else?) **

I ran through S names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The livomms that all seemed to work here. The way Toby cringed, as if Mr. S were his master.

"You're Sahale," I said. "The god of wine."

Mr. S rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Toby? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"Y-yes, Mr. S."

"Then, well, duh! Darwin Wilbur. Did you think I was Pauline, perhaps?"

"You're a god."

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. S would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. S," Kolorado said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

I thought Mr. S was going to vaporize Kolorado right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Toby rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. S said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Toby, we need to talk, again, about your less-than perfect performance on this assignment."

Toby's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes,sir."

Mr. S turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Darwin Wilbur. And mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Toby following miserably.

"Will Toby be okay?" I asked Kolorado.

Kolorado nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Sahale isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been… Ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed back to Starlus."

"Mount Starlus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Starlus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be in on Mount Starlus. It's still called Mount Starlus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Darwin, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like… In America?"

"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."

"The what?"

"Come now, Darwin. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Marloon for Mario, Perfemene for Pauline, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods." **(A/N: It's already hard coming up with the Greek names, why, o' why must there be Roman as well! TT) **

"And then they died."

"Died? No. Did the west die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they'd ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Darwin, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Mario. Look at the statue of Nevulan in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Starlians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either-America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Starlus is here. And we are here."

It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Kolorado's we, as if I were part of some club.

"Who are you, Kolorado? Who… Who am I?"

Kolorado smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs. He looked like he was getting taller. His waist kept coming up, but it looked strange. At first, I thought he was just a little chubby, but no. He got up, but I don't think that for what he is _should_ be up. He put his hands on his shirt-no, he wasn't grabbing his shirt. He grabbed a fistful of air below his tweed jacket, and pulled up like he was taking off a shirt, or an _invisible_ shirt, but when he pulled up, I could see everything of him more clearly now. He really _did_ have yellow skin, and a far much pointy nose, and the most things that shocked me was that he had a _turtle shell_. Right under his tweed jacket. Just when you think you know somebody. In his lower half you could see his pants, but they weren't covering his shell, making it noticeable that he had shell, and a tail. No wonder he used it.

I stared at the turtle who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white-shelled sea animal. But where its neck should be was the chest of my Latin teacher.

"What a relief," the koopa said. "I'd been cooped up in there with my invisibility aura so long, I forgot how I looked like. Now, come, Darwin Wilbur. Let's meet the other campers."

**Well, that's it for Chapter Five! I hope you liked it! And if you did, then review if you want! I'll hurry up on Chapter six!**


	6. I Become the Supreme Lord ofthe Bathroom

**Hey guys, here's Chapter Six , I'm really sorry it took so long to update, but I had personal reasons, so at least I finally finished it!**

**I hope you like it! Because part of the reasons it took long is because I had to come up with new names! Who would have thought an author's job is difficult!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own!**

* * *

CHAPTER SIX, I Become the Supreme Lord of the Bathroom

Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a turtle, we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd listened once in a nature channel that a turtle shell could be really hard depending on how big the turtle was, and, I'm sorry, I did not trust Kolorado's back if he ever stops suddenly, I didn't not want to risk it. **(A/N: I don't know if that's true, but I had to come up with something!)**

We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the topmaniac claw I was carrying. Another said, "That's him."

Most of the campers were older than me. Their livomm friends were bigger than Toby, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover except some round-like things that looked like diapers, but every livomm had one, so I thought it must be _part_ of their bodies. I wasn't normally shy, but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.

I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized-four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.

"What's up there?" I asked Kolorado.

He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?"

"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing." **(A/N: I need help on something from the Mario Universe that can have the role of the Spirit of Delphi! If you have any ideas, could you please answer in the reviews?)**

I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.

"Come along, Darwin," Kolorado said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."

We walked through the strawberry fields, where campers were picking bushels of berries while a livomm played a tune on a reed pipe.

Kolorado told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Starlus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."

He said Mr. S had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. S was restricted from growing those, so they grew strawberries instead.

I watched the livomm playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Toby could work that kind of magic with music. I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. S.

"Toby won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Kolorado. "I mean… He was a good protector. Really."

Kolorado sighed. He moved back and forth his tweed jacket and let it alone. "Toby has big dreams, Darwin. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half-Blood Hill."

"But he did that!"

"I might agree with you," Kolorado said. "But it is not my place to judge. Sahale and the Council of Mushroom Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Toby lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate… Ah… Fate of your mother. And the fact that Toby was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Toby's part."

I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Toby's fault- I also felt really, really guilty. If I hadn't given Toby the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.

"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"

Kolorado winced. "I'm afraid that was Toby's second chance, Darwin. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago. Starlus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age…"

"How old his he?"

"Oh, twenty-eight."

"What! And he's in sixth grade?"

"Livomms mature half as fast as humans, Darwin. Toby has been the equivalent of a middle school for the past six years."

"That's horrible."

"Quite," Kolorado agreed. "At any rate, Toby is a late bloomer, even by livomm standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find another career…"

"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"

Kolorado looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"

But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Kolorado talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word death. The beginnings of an idea-a tiny, hopeful fire-started forming in my mind.

"Kolorado," I said. "If the gods and Starlus and all that are real…"

"Yes, child?"

"Does that mean the Soul Zone is real, too?"

Kolorado's expression darkened.

"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now… Until we know more… I would urge you to put that thought out of your mind."

"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"

"Come, Darwin. Let's see the woods."

As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Kolorado said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"

"My own-?"

"No," Kolorado said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."

I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables, the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheater, and the arena where Kolorado said they held sword and spear fights.

"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.

"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually. Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."

Kolorado pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roofs. No walls.

"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.

Kolorado looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird. "We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.

Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.

Except the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

"Mario and Peach?" I guessed. **(A/N: :D)**

"Correct," Kolorado said.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Starlians. But why would some be empty?

I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside the open doorway and Kolorado said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that."  
Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down. But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Kolorado put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Darwin."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A de-activated bullet with a mouth opened with pointy teeth and hung over the doorway, and its malicious eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Lindsay Barker, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Kolorado's appearance. "We haven't seen any other koopas," I observed.

"No," said Kolorado sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk, I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."

"You said your name was Kolorado. Are you really…"

He smiled down at me. "The Kolorado from the stories? Trainer of Brilieres and all that? Yes, Darwin, I am." **(A/N: Also had to change the name of ancient heroes! I hope you like their names!)**

"But shouldn't you be dead?"

Kolorado paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a trainer of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish… And I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?"

Kolorado seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look," he said. "Nikki is waiting for us

…

The blonde girl I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.

When we reached her, she looked at me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.

I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Nikki," Kolorado said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you mind take Darwin from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin eleven," Kolorado told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it…? A caduceus. **(A/N: After half an hour on deciding on what should I put them instead of the snakes I gave up)**

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Kolorado didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Kolorado said. "Good luck, Darwin. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood on the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Nikki prompted. "Go on."

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Nikki announced, "Darwin Wilbur, meet cabin eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Nikki said, "Undetermined."

Everybody else groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Darwin. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Derek," Nikki said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over could've sworn she was blushing. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now." **(A/N: Hope you liked the name! :D )**

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Derek explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Rennet, our patron, is the god of travels."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Topmaniac's claw. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Rennet was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Derek said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Nikki told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

When we were a few feet away, Nikki said, "Wilbur, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" I was angry now. "All I know is, I kill some robot thing-"

"Don't talk like that!" Nikki told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Topmaniac! What do you think we train for?"

I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Topmaniac, the same one from the stories…"

"Yes."

"Than there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Frileus killed him in the pipe maze. So…" **(A/N: I couldn't think of anything else other than 'Frilus'!)**

"Monsters don't die, Darwin. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Kolorado calls them arche-types. Eventually, the re-form.

I thought about Mrs. Kayla. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"

"The Mag… I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Kayla?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"You almost call her something. A Magikoopa? They're Stanley's torturers, right?" **(A/N: Hope you know who Stanley is! Hint: a certain DK fought him!)**

Nikki glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Nikki turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Darwin. It depends on who your parents are. Or… Your parent."

She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"My mom is Chelsea Wilbur," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least-she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, Darwin. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead. I never knew him."

Nikki sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Darwin."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say-"

"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How-"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD too."

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD-you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Darwin, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like… You went through the same thing?"

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Topmaniac, much less the healooms and nectar."

"Healooms and nectar." **(A/N: Get it? Shrooms who heal! he he)**

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."

A half-blood.

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Kelly," Nikki sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

"Erre es korakas!" Nikki said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Kelly said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"

"Darwin Wilbur," Nikki said, "meet Kelly, Daughter of Wildter." **(A/N: I'm running out of ideas! give me a break...)**

I blinked. "Like… the war god?"

Kelly sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."

Kelly growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Drissy."

"Darwin."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Kelly-" Nikki tried to say.

"Stay out of it, wise girl."

Nikki looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Nikki my topmaniac claw and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Kelly had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Kelly had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of showers stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking-as much as I could think with Kelly ripping my hair out-that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford much classier johns.

Kelly's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Topmaniac, but it wasn't there.

"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Kelly said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Topmaniac probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered.

Nikki stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.

Kelly bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes, and, well, like what goes in the toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Kelly's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Kelly screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Kelly straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Nikki hadn't even been spared. She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Nikki said, "How did you…"

"I don't know."

We walked to the door. Outside, Kelly and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Kelly's hair was flattened her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."

I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Kelly? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Nikki stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," she said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."

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**Well, that's the end of the chapter! I hope you liked it! And if you did, follow or favorite or review! I'll hurry up on Chapter Seven!**


	7. My Dinner Goes Up in Smoke

**Hey guys! Here's Chapter Seven! Sorry for the late update! I hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

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CHAPTER SEVEN, My Dinner Goes Up in Smoke

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Nikki, who was still pretty much dripping wet.

She showed me a few more places: the metal shop (where kids forged their own swords), the arts-and-crafts room (where livomms were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a toad-man), and the climbing wall, which really consisted of two facing walls shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins.

"I've got training to do," Nikki said flatly. "Dinner at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Nikki, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

"You need to talk to the Madam," Nikki said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Madam. I'll ask Kolorado." **(A/N: For those who don't know who's gonna represent the oracle of delphi, the hint is, she's in one of the Paper Mario games! ;) )**

I stared into the lake, wishing somebody would give me a straight answer for once.

I wasn't expecting anybody looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I was a long lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Nikki warned. "Nyaths are terrible flirts." **(A/N: Spent a lot of time writing a new name)**

"Nyaths," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Nikki frowned. "Don't you get it, Darwin? You are home. This is the only safe place for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Nikki nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Darwin. He's one of the Starlians."

"That's… Crazy."

"Is it? What's the common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed they're habits in the last few millennia?"

"But those are just-" I almost said myths again. Then I remembered Kolorado's warning that in two thousand years, I might be considered a myth. "But if all the kids here are half-gods-"

"Demigods," Nikki said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

Her hands tightened around the pier railing. I got the feeling I'd just trespassed on a sensitive subject."

"My dad is a professor at West Point," she said. "I haven't seen him since I was very small. He teaches American History."

"He's human."

"What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?"

"Who's your mom then?"

"Cabin six."

"Meaning?"

Nikki straightened. "Nigera. Goddess of wisdom and battle." **(A/N: *shruggs*)**

Okay, I thought. Why not?

"And my dad?"

"Undetermined," Nikki said, "like I told you before. Nobody knows."

"Except my mother. She knew."

"Maybe not, Darwin. Gods don't always reveal their identities."

"My dad would have. He loved her."

Nikki gave me a cautious look. She didn't want to burst my bubble. "Maybe you're right. Maybe he'll send a sign. That's the only way to know for sure: your father has to send you a sign claiming you as his son. Sometimes it happens."

"You mean sometimes it doesn't?"

Nikki ran her palm along the rail. "The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always… Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Darwin. They ignore us."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Rennet cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding schools by rich parents who didn't have time to deal with them. But the gods should behave better.

"So I'm stuck here," I said. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," Nikki said. "Some campers only stay in the summer. If you're a child of Pauline or Melanie, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here."

Nikki shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"The point is, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry barn."

"So… You're a year-rounder?"

Nikki nodded. From under the collar of her T-shirt she pulled a leather necklace with five clay beads of different colors. It was just like Derek's, except Nikki also had a big gold ring strung from it, like a collage ring.

"I've been here since I was seven," she said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college."

"Why did you come so young?"

She twisted her collage ring on her necklace. "None of your business."

"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So… I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. S's or Kolorado's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless…"

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time…"

Her voice trailed off. I could tell from her tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff-"

"Healooms."

"Yeah. You asked me something about the summer solstice."

Nikki's shoulders tensed. "So you do know something?"

"Well… No. Back at my old school, I overheard Toby and Kolorado talking about it. Toby mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. What did he mean?"

She clenched her fists. "I wish I knew. Kolorado and the livomms, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Starlus, something major. Last time I was there, every thing seemed normal."

"You've been to Starlus?"

"Some of us year rounders-Derek and Kelly and I and a few others-we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But… How did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor." She looked at me like she was sure I must know this already. "You are a New Yorker, right?"

"Oh, sure." As far as I knew, there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building, but I decided not to point that out.

"Right after we visited," Nikki continued, "the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard livomms talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, I was hoping… I mean-Nigera can get along with just about anybody, except for Wildter. And of course she's got the rivalry with Luigi. But, I mean, aside from that, I thought we could work together. I thought you might know something."

I shook my head. I wished I could help her, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask anymore questions.

"I've got to get a quest," Nikki muttered to herself. "I'm not too young. Of they would just tell me the problem…"

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Nikki must've heard my stomach growl. She told me to go on, she'd catch me later. I left her on the pier, tracing her finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid mush attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my topmaniac claw.

The counselor, Derek, came over. He had the same Rennet resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Derek sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day."

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't even believe in gods."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. Once you started believing in them? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Derek seemed like a pretty easygoing guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Rennet?" I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Rennet."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Rennet isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Derek didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot in his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Derek looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Darwin. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him-even if he was a counselor-should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Derek had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Kelly, from Wildter, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Nikki… Twice, she said I might be 'the one'. She said I should talk to the Madam. What was that all about?"

Derek folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Lumas went sour, Kolorado hasn't allowed any more quests. Nikki's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Kolorado so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Madam oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Nikki wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until… Somebody special came to camp."

"Somebody special?"

"Don't worry about it, kid," Derek said. "Nikki wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before."

Derek yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Livomms joined us from the meadow. Nyaths emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods-and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen livomms, and a dozen assorted wood nearths and nyaths.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Toby sitting at table twelve with Mr. S, a few livomms, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. S. Kolorado stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a koopa.

Nikki sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey-blond hair.

Kelly sat behind me at Wildter's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Kolorado pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nearths came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Derek said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Soul Zone. And if that's a real place, then someday…

"Here you go, Darwin," Derek said, handing me a platter of smoked basket.

I loaded my plate and was about to give a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Derek told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Derek mumbled in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."  
"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't figure help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Derek approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat grapes. "Rennet."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

Finally, I made a silent plea. Whoever you are, tell me. Please.

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

When everybody had returned to their seats and finished eating their meals, Kolorado pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. S got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Kolorado, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels.

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Wildter table.

"Personally," Mr. S continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Darrin Wallror."

Kolorado murmured something.

"Er, Darwin Wilbur," Mr. S corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Matthew's cabin led a sing-along. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Topmaniac's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

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**Well, that's it! I hope you liked it! And from this chapter, I hope you know who's Darwin's parent from this chapter! And if you do, answer in the reviews!**


	8. We Capture a Flag

**Hey 'yall! Chapter Eight finally done! Honestly I never thought I'll get this far! Well, anyway, the reason I took long is because I had some technical difficulties, but, antway, anjoy the chapter!**

**P.S.: I wanna thank all those that like my story! I hope you keep liking them! Guest reviews also accepted!**

**Disclaimer: Me no own.**

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CHAPTER EIGHT, We Capture a Flag

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from livomms, nearths, and a koopa.

Each morning I took Ancient Greek lessons from Nikki, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Nikki was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek for me wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. After a couple of mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much headache.

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at. Kolorado tried to teach me archery, but we found out quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to desnag a stray arrow out of his tail.

Foot racing? No good either. The wood-nearths instructors left me in the dust. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice from running from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating being slower than a tree.

And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Kelly would pulverize me.

"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.

The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Topmaniac.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to figure out who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Wildter kids, or as good at archery as the Matthew kids. I didn't have Wultork's skill with metalwork or-gods forbid-Sahale's way with vine plants. Derek told me I might be a child of Rennet, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He didn't really know what to make of me either.  
Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back…

I started to understand Derek's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Rennet. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Sahale could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Derek would be our instructor.

We stared with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Derek tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in to pairs. Derek announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Derek's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," he said.

The camper snorted.

Derek showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Darwin," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" Whap! "Lunge!" Whap! "Now, back!" Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked with sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Derek poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Derek ordered. "If Darwin doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Great, I thought. Let's all watch Darwin get pounded.

The Rennet guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Derek used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Darwin, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Darwin?"

I nodded, and Derek came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt from his sword. My sensed opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Derek deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Derek took me down, so I figured, What the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of Derek's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang.

Derek's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of the blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers were silent.

I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."

For a moment, Derek was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Darwin, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Derek insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Derek hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Derek wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Darwin could do with a balanced sword…"

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Toby at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Toby had scampered to the top like growing fungi, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.

We sat on the pier, watching the nyaths do underwater basket-weaving, until I got the nerve to ask Toby how his conversation had gone with Mr. S.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow.

"Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career is still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously. "Kolorado t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well… No." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask. "He just said you had big plans, you know… And that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Toby looked down at the nyaths. "Mr. S suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded on you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

He coughed sugar. "He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest… And even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course I'd want you along!"

Toby stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving… Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Nadren," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So, of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

"Yeah, okay. But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Toby tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is Peach's" he said. "That's another honorary thing. She'd the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Mockrow."

"Mario, Luigi, Stanley."

"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Nightrians, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Mario got the sky," I remembered. "Luigi the sea, Stanley the Soul Zone."

"Uh-huh."

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Starlus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Soul Zone. If he did have a cabin here…" Toby shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."

"But Mario and Luigi-they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Toby shifted his brown feet uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Mario and Luigi, on one side, and the sons of Stanley on the other. The winning side, Mario and Luigi, made Stanley swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the river Stirr."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

Toby nodded.

"And the brothers kept their word-no kids?"

Toby's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Mario fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo-he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Cindy… Well, the River Stirr is serious about promises. Mario himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"But that isn't fair. It wasn't the little girl's fault."

Toby hesitated. "Darwin, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Stanley found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Mario breaking his oath. Stanley let out the worst monsters out of Bowserus to torment Cindy. A livomm was assigned to be a keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the topmaniac. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, alongside with a horde of chain chumps. They were about to be overrun when Cindy told her livomm to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The livomm didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Cindy made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Mario took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Topmaniac didn't seem so much. I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

"Toby," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Soul Zone?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Jodeus. Brilieres. Veccni."

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Jodeus came close… Darwin, you're not seriously thinking-"

"No," I lied. "I was just wondering. So… A livomm is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Toby studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Soul Zone idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Kolorado. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Kolorado said you thought I might be something special."

Toby looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't… Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were-you know-you'd never be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Rennet. Or maybe even one of the minor monster gods, like Peasley, the goddess of revenge. Don't worry, okay."

I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

The night after dinner, there was a lot of more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Nikki and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Kelly and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, with painted with a bloody spear and a Bullet Bill's head.

I turned to Derek and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"

"Yeah."

"Wildter and Nigera always lead the teams?"

"Not always. But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do-repaint the flag?"

He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."

"Whose side are we on?"

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Nigera. Tonight, we get the flag from Wildter. And you're going to help."

The teams were announced. Nigera had made an alliance with Matthew and Rennet, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded-shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities in order to win support.

Wildter had allied themselves with everybody else: Sahale, Melanie, Pauline, and Wultork. From what I'd seen, Sahale's kids were actually good athletes, but they were only two of them. Melanie's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Pauline's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Wultork's kids weren't pretty, and they were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Wildter's cabin: a dozen of the biggiest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Kolorado stammered his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"

Derek looked at me as if I was crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here-Kolorado thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Nigera's side, had a blue horsehair on top. Wildter and their allies had red plumes.

Nikki yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with Nikki without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

She kept marching.

"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.

"Just watch Kelly's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing toughing you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Wildter. Has Derek given you your job?"

"Border patrol, whatever that means."

"It's easy. Stand by the creek, keep the reds away. Leave the rest to me. Nigera always has a plan."

She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me in your team."

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. Nikki stationed me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then she and the rest of the team scattered into the trees.

Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Starlus had to have liability issues, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Matthew raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.

Then I heard the sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I raised my shield instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence of retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Wildter warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

"Cream the punk!" yelled Kelly.

Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal wire tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords-not that that made me feel any better.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Wildter cabin.

I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid as the Topmaniac. They surrounded, and Kelly thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm felt numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.

Another Wildter guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and hit the dirt.

They could have kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give him a haircut," Kelly said. "Grab his hair."

I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Kelly slammed it aside with her spear and sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

"Oh, wow," Kelly said. "I'm scared of this guy. Really scared."

"The flag is that way," I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come that way.

"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about the guy that made our cabin look stupid."

"You do that without my help," I told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Kelly was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-ke-babbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabin mates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good size cut.

Seeing my own blood made me dizzy-warm and cold at the same time.

"No maiming," I managed to say.

"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege."

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-expresso jelly beans.

Kelly and her cabin mates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumbled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Kelly kept coming, the point of her spear cracking with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elating screams, and I saw Derek racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Rennet guys covering his retreat, and a few Matthews behind them, fighting off the Wultork kids. The Wildter folks got up, and Kelly muttered a dazed curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Derek, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Derek ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned silver. The Bullet Bill and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Derek and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Kolorado cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We'd won.

I was about to join the celebration when Nikki's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."

I looked, but she wasn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

I felt myself angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Kelly would come after me, while you sent Derek around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Nikki shrugged. "I told you. Nigera always, always has a plan."

"A plan to get me pulverized."

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but…" She shrugged. "You didn't need my help."

Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," I said. "What do you think?"

"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.

"I-I don't get it," I said.

Nikki was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at her feet, then at Kelly's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Darwin."

"What-"

"Just do it."

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Nikki steadied me.

"Oh, Stirr," she cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want… I assumed it would be Mario…"

Before I could ask what she meant, I heard the canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Kolorado shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Nikki drew her sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black round-like thing with a chain as a tail, lava red eyes, and teeth like daggers.

It was looking straight at me.

Nobody moved except Nikki, who yelled, "Darwin, run!"

She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her-an enormous living chain with teeth-and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp chains ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the chains neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chesty felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

Kolorado trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim.

"Di immortales!" Nikki said. "That's a Chain Chump from the Fields of Punishment. They don't… They're not supposed to…"

"Someone summoned it," Kolorado said. "Someone inside camp."

Derek came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Kelly yelled, "It's all Darwin's fault! Darwin summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Kolorado told her.

We watched the body of the Chain Chump melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

"You're wounded," Nikki told me. "Quick, Darwin, get into the water."

"I'm okay."

"No you're not," she said. "Kolorado, watch this."

I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.

Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers laughed.

"Look, I-I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry…"

But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

"Darwin," Nikki said, pointing. "Um…"

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"Your father," Nikki murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Kolorado announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Wildter cabin, although they didn't look happy about it.

"My father?" I asked, completely bewildered.

"Luigi," said Kolorado. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Darwin Wilbur, Son of the Sea God."

* * *

**Well, that's it! I'll hurry up on Chapter Nine! If none of you knew that Luigi was destined to be Darwin's dad, then now you know! He he.**

**Anyway, I need help, I don't know what people from the Mario Universe should be the minor (monster) gods! Answer in the reviews!**


	9. I Am Offered a Quest

**Hey guys! I AM TERRIBLY SORRY THAT IT TOOK SO LONG! MY COMPUTER BUSTED! A VIRUS ENTERED IN MY HARD DISC, AND NOW I HAVE TO BUY A NEW ONE! AND THE TROUBLE IS THAT HAD _ALL_ OF MY DOCUMENTS IN IT, AND THEY WENT BYE-BYE! :[ AND JUST WHEN I WAS FINISHING THE CHAPTER! SO I HAD TO DO THE CHAPTER ALL OVER AGAIN. HOW LAZY!**

**Anyway, here's the chapter! Again so sorry!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Super Mario or PJ & Olympians. SHEESH!**

* * *

CHAPTER NINE, I Am Offered a Quest

The next morning, Kolorado moved me to cabin three.

I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Topmaniac's claw, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

And I was absolutely miserable.

Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid-or as normal as you be can when you're a half-blood-I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.

Nobody mentioned the Chain Chump, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the son of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Wildter folks in the woods, so my lessons with Derek became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

Nikki still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest . . . Luigi? . . . Dirty rotten . . . Got to make a plan. . ."

Even Kelly kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.

BOY AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER

FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

Chelsea Wilbur and son Darwin are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no signs of the missing Wilburs. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Wilbur's husband, Charlie Trevor, claims that his stepson, Darwin Wilbur, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether son Darwin is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Chelsea Wilbur and Darwin. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled was circled in black marker.

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.

"Lights out," I told myself miserably.

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: building spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with large moustaches and brown hair. Both wore caps, one red, with a white circle, with a red M, and the other green, also with a white circle, but with a green L, and flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in red and sky-blue, the other in green and sea-blue. They grappled each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the red-and-sky-blue-robed one yelling at the green-and-sea-blue-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.

I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!

The sand spit beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.

I heard a knocking sound at the door, a fist knocking on the threshold.

"Come in?"

Toby trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. S wants to see you."

"Why?"

"He wants to kill. . . I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.

For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a son of Luigi, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. S was ready to deliver their verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Toby if we needed an umbrella.

"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.

But this storm. . . This one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Matthew's cabin were playing a morning game against the livomms. Sahale's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.

Toby and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Sahale sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Kolorado sat across the table in his fake wheel-chair. They were playing against invisible opponents-two sets of cards hovering in the air.

"Well, well," Mr. S said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."

I waited.

"Come closer," Mr. S said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle-Mustache is your father."

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Sahale said.

Kolorado feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Toby cowered by the railing, his huge feet going back and forth.

"If I had my way," Sahale said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Kolorado seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. S," Kolorado put in.

"Nonsense," Sahale said. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"Mr. S-" Kolorado warned.

"Oh, all right," Sahale relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Sahale rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Starlus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Darwinx Wilbur, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Kolorado feels you must do."

Sahale picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.

He snapped his fingers.

The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

Kolorado smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Darwin, please. And Toby."

We did.

Kolorado laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"Tell me, Darwin," he said. "What did you make of the Chain Chump?"

Just hearing the name made me shudder.

Kolorado probably wanted me to say, Heck, it was nothing. I eat Chain Chumps for breakfast. But I didn't feel like lying.

"It scared me," I said. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."

"You'll meet worse, Darwin. Far worse, before you're done."

"Done. . . With what?"

"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"

I glanced at Toby, who was crossing his fingers.

"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."

Kolorado grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Luigi and Mario," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable. . . Something that was stolen, aren't they?"

Kolorado and Toby exchanged looks.

Kolorado sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Nikki, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And. . . I've also been having these dreams."

"I knew it," Toby said.

"Hush, livomm." Kolorado ordered.

"But it is his quest!" Toby's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Madam Oracle can determine." Kolorado stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Darwin, you are correct. Your father and Mario are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning hammer."

I laughed nervously. "A what?"

"Do not take this lightly," Kolorado warned. "I'm not talking about some plastic tiny-as-a-juice-box zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long oak tree-made stick with the head-hammer as large as a boulder of high-grade Goldix Enstonia, capped on both sides its two-sided head with god-level explosives."

"Oh."

"Mario's Power Hammer," Kolorado said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are made. The first weapon made by the Amps for the war against the Nightrians, the Hammer that sheered the top off Mount Jeksta and hurled Mockrow from his throne; the Power Hammer, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"And it's missing?"

"Stolen," Kolorado said.

"By who?"

"By whom," Kolorado corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you."

My mouth fell open.

"At least"-Kolorado held up a hand-"that's what Mario thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Mario and Luigi had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Komfreia always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters' et cetera. Afterward, Mario realized his Power Hammer was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Luigi. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly-that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Mario believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I didn't-"

"Patience and listen, child," Kolorado said. "Mario has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Amps are under the ocean, which gives Luigi more influence over the makers of his brother's hammer. Mario believes Luigi has taken the Power Hammer, and is now secretly having the Amps build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Mario from his throne. The only thing Mario wasn't sure about was which hero Luigi used to steal the hammer. Now Luigi has openly claimed you as his son. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Starlus. Mario believes he has found his thief."

"But I've never been to Starlus! Mario is crazy!"

Kolorado and Toby glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Toby had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

"Er, Darwin. . .?" Toby said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"Perhaps paranoid," Kolorado suggested. "Then again, Luigi has tried to unseat Mario before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam. . . ." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.

How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Charlie's poker party without getting busted. Kolorado was waiting for an answer.

"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Luigi and Peach and a few other gods. . . They, like, trapped Mario and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"

"Correct," Kolorado said. "And Mario has never trusted Luigi since. Of course, Luigi denies stealing the Power Hammer. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along-the proverbial last straw."

"But I'm just a kid!"

"Darwin," Toby cut in, "if you were Mario, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you. . . . Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"But I didn't do anything. Luigi-my dad-he didn't really have this Power Hammer stolen, did he?"

Kolorado sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Luigi's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Mario of that. Mario has demanded that Luigi return the Hammer by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Luigi wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hope that diplomacy might prevail, that Peach or Melanie or Jessica would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Mario's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the Power Hammer is found and returned to Mario before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would be like, Darwin?"

"Bad?" I guessed.

"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Starlians forced to choose sides between Mario and Luigi. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."

"Bad," I repeated.

"And you, Darwin Wilbur, would be the first to feel Mario's wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Mario was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.

"So I have to find the stupid hammer," I said. "And return it to Mario."

"What better peace offering," Kolorado said, "than to have the son of Luigi return Mario's property?"

"If Luigi doesn't have it, where is the thing?"

"I believe I know." Kolorado's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago. . . Well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the council of the Madam Oracle."

"Why can't you tell me where the hammer is beforehand?"

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."

I swallowed. "Good reason."

"You agree then?"

I looked at Toby, who nodded encouragingly.

Easy for him. I was the one Mario wanted to kill.

"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Kolorado said. "Go upstairs, Darwin Wilbur, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap-door.

I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else. . . A smell I remembered from that trip to the space museum back when I was little. Stardust. The smell of comets.

I held my breath and climbed.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, JOKE'S END and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things-severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant dinosaur's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, BAHAMUTT HEAD #1, WOODSTUCK, N. Y., 1969.

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A black mist, but it was full of tiny stars, as if I was watching night, poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, colliding like twenty thousand space clouds. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trap-door, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, Merstar's ancestor, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Matthew, slayer of the mighty Czar. Approach, seeker, and ask.

I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.

The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle or something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the space-like mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my witch-crafted math teacher Mrs. Kayla or the Topmaniac. It felt more like the Seven Star Spirits I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway stand: ancient (though the six stars didn't look like at all), powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.

I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Charlie and his buddies.

My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.

Charlie turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Finally, Roy, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge space-like ball of the universe and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"

The last of the mist ball disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.

My audience with the Madam Oracle was over.

"Well?" Kolorado asked me.

I slumped back into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."

Toby sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"

"What did the Madam say exactly?" Kolorado pressed. "This is important."

My ears were still tingling from the dreamlike voice. "She. . . She said I would go west and face a god who has turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Toby said.

Kolorado didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell him.

What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.

And the last line-I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, Oh, by the way, you'll fail.

How could I confess that?

"No," I said. "That's about it."

He studied my face. "Very well, Darwin. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.

"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Darwin," Kolorado said. "If Mario and Luigi weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Stanley."

Kolorado nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Toby's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh-what?"

"A Magikoopa came after Darwin," Kolorado reminded him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Magikoopas obey only one lord: Stanley."

"Yes, but-but Stanley hates all heroes," Toby protested. "Especially if he has found out Darwin is a son of Luigi. . ."

"A Chain Chump got into the forest," Kolorado continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned within the camp. Stanley must have a spy here. He must suspect Luigi will try to use Darwin to clear his name. Stanley would very much like to kill this young half-blood before he can take on the quest."

"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."

"But a quest to. . ." Toby swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the Power Hammer be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

"Stanley sent a minion to steal the Power Hammer," Kolorado insisted. "He hid it in the Soul Zone, knowing full well that Mario would blame Luigi. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Darwin must go to the Soul Zone, find the Power Hammer, and reveal the truth."

A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Stanley had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Magikoopa, the Topmaniac, and the Chain Chump. It was his fault my mother disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed.

I was ready to take him on.

Besides, if my mother was in the Soul Zone. . .

Whoa, boy, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Stanley is a god.

Toby was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.

The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.

"Look, if we know it's Stanley," I told Kolorado, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Mario or Luigi could go down to the Soul Zone and bust some heads."

"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Kolorado said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Stanley-And I imagine Luigi does-they couldn't retrieve the hammer themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"You're saying I'm being used."

"I'm saying it's no accident Luigi has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's ina desperate situation. He needs you."

My dad needs me.

Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Luigi had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.

I looked at Kolorado. "You've known I was Luigi's son all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said. . . I've spoken to the Madam Oracle, too."

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now.

After all, I was holding back information too.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed to go to the Soul Zone and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Kolorado said.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check."

"And get it back to Starlus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

I looked at Toby, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you."

"Oh. . ." He shifted his feet. "No. . . It's just that livomms and underground places. . . Well. . ."

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-Shirt. "You saved my life, Darwin. If. . . If you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."

I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Toby was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a livomm could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.

"All the way, T-man." I turned to Kolorado. "So where do we go? The Madam Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Soul Zone is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Starlus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Kolorado looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Soul Zone is in Los Angeles."

"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane-"

"No!" Toby shrieked. "Darwin, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"

I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have enough money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Darwin, think," Kolorado said. "You're the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Mario, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Mario's domain. You would never come down again alive."

Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.

"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll just travel overland."

"That's right," Kolorado said. "Two companions may accompany you. Toby is one. The other volunteered, if you will accept her help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Kolorado.

Nikki became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Seaweed Brain," she said. "Nigera is no fan of Luigi, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"If you say so yourself," I said. "I suppose you have a plan, Wise Girl?"

Her cheeks colored. "Do you want my help or not?"

The truth was, I did. I needed all the help I could get.

"A trio," I said. "That'll work."

"Excellent," Kolorado said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather."

"No time to waste," Kolorado said. "I think you should all get packing."

* * *

**Well, that's the end of the chapter! Hope you liked it! I'll hurry up in Chapter Ten! Ethan, OUT!**

**PS: Ethan's my real name.**


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